The big phony

I recently had a studio visit with a woman who has been collecting my work for years. She is also one of the better people I have had the good luck to meet in this world. So there was no obvious reason for me to feel the need to be anything but myself with her. Which I was, for the most part. And yet…

Afterward I realized I kept running this internal dialogue about how to say things that would make my new series seem important. “Art” talk. Luckily I was able to fend most of it off, and I am also just really bad at making up that kind of junk. But yuck!

I am not sure how it happened but somehow I had adopted this idea that I need to be someone else in order to sell work and especially when it comes to galleries, etc.

This is especially funny since I am not shy about sharing how gross I think that false side of the art business can be!

So I got a strong reminder of how much I believe in speaking your truth, rather than a bunch of fake drivel designed to impress. And also finding what has resonance and letting that be your guide, rather than some external determination of status or what “should” work.

This is especially timely as I am getting ready to consider where I might want to show my new Cultivation series.

While fending off falseness, I kept working on these larger backgrounds this week.

I also got my work back from the exhibitions in Budapest. There was this nice catalog for the show.

And then I started messing with the oil paintings, just thinking about options.

So this week, here’s to finding out that the big phony is you…and using that as a compass to run in the other direction!